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Saturday, May 5, 2018

Oh dear, it's May. How has a third of the year gone already? Not that it's been an idyllic time of peaceful enjoyment. It's been more like a bumper car ride. In no particular order...

Billy finally reached out to his 1st wife and their son in February. And they're getting married on the anniversary of their 1st wedding (they married twice) at the end of this month. Their son, whom I call Junior, is a mess. A spoiled 46 year-old who's been living off Mama for years and years (along with his 49 year-old girlfriend who was convicted of kiting checks and doesn't work). Billy is riding in like the cavalry to hopefully straighten out said mess. All of this means that he is selling up and moving to Florida. Kick will help him clean out, bless her, and he has 2 potential buyers. But there's so much to unload. Since Mac was spending 4-5 grand a month on QVC, there is endless crap to wade through. He just found sheet sets crammed into the front room endtables. It took weeks to even make room to open the endtables. I'm hopeful but scared for Billy. He and Mia were together from junior high school until they were 25, and Mia was my only big sister from the time I was 5. I could be overjoyed if I wasn't terrified for him. If this doesn't work out...

Beest died on March 29th. There were several things going on, all related to her thyroid. She wouldn't eat anything for almost a week, barely drank, and at the end she was clearly ready to go. My vet came here and we put her out of the misery. His guess was she was 14-15 years old. I miss her.

RIP Beest. You were loved by many.

It's gone from snow to 90'F in 2 weeks. I miss Winter.

The housing authority is morphing into a Neocon mindset. My AC charges have jumped from 100$/ the season to 220$. We can't put our own ACs in the window, nor take them out. Maintenance will do that, but we'll get no appointment for it; they'll do it whenever. Since that Masshole Republican got into his office manager job here, things have gone to hell. I won't list the number of assholy things he's wrought, it'll just piss us all off.

Meanwhile, I gave up wheat on February 2nd when my caseworker told me a couch potato lost 150 lbs. over 2 years just giving up wheat. Not easy at first, but very worth it. All my digestive issues went away. I sleep better. I lost 32 pounds in 3 months with no other change in life. It's tough to lose weight when you can't walk, but this is working. And it's so simple. You just don't eat wheat in any form. I admit to straying twice in my birthday week, but I paid for it in gastric distress and I won't be doing it again. Highly recommend it. Need info? Read Wheat Belly, which was urged at me after I started the no wheat deal. Wheat isn't the wheat we ate 50 years ago. I'll say no more.

With the world as it is, I'm pondering the oddball theory that the Large Hadron Collider propelled us into another dimension, an alternate reality. Everything is so FUBAR, it beggars belief that we are in the same universe we were in a dozen years ago.

Yet we carry on, oars against the current, defiantly laughing at whatever gets thrown at us.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Just this afternoon I was thinking, "I've lost the need to write." But here I am. Much of the time I'm overwhelmed and unsure these days. Plenty of other people broadcast what I'm thinking, so why add to the buzz? What do I even think of it all anymore? I don't even know. Because I don't trust anything I hear to be true, I'm unsure. I think and wonder and hypothesize in my head, and there's no summation, no conclusions. Every day it's more awfulness. This is what 11 months of Cheeto von Tweeto and the corrupt Fascist Congress, religious insanity of all ilks, and crazy ass killings have brought.

2017 was a brutal year. On the round heels of 2016's deathapalooza we get a load of crazy people in power all together. We take a deep breath and go on. No time to grieve anything anymore. Carry on with your PTSD self. Yes, those are naked pix of the President's wife. Move along. Yes, groceries have drastically risen in price. Take it or leave it. Yes, if you depend on the Social Security that you paid into for decades, or any social service, you may be screwed pretty soon. Look at this cat meme!

This is not a world for the tender or weak. But it is a place for the pissy and indignant, and I am those even at the best of times. (Has there even been a 'best of times'? agh, another topic for another day...) There must never come a day when nobody argues their point, but I worry that we've become too stupid and lazy to care to have a point. It's easier to be told what to think than to think for yourself. It's also easier to just morph from feeling to feeling, because nobody will challenge your feelings. If you're weak there's no encouragement to get strong. There are drugs to remove those annoying thoughts that may flutter by. Just take this pill and none of it will bother you. And we'll make a profit.

Lately I've read a few articles about "the end of Capitalism". It seems like the end of something. An end is also a beginning.

May 2018 bring us justice, truth, peace, kindness, open minds and hearts, and make them our values.
Get the hell out, 2017 and don't let the door hit you where nature split you.
x

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Boy, the past few months beat me down. I had nothing but rants and bad news so I kept it all on Fecebook. It's hard to type anyway, easier to just click a 'share' button.

But it's snowing, and it's Christmastime. Amid a lot of cursing, I put the tree up and got the lights on yesterday. This year we put tin foil on the wall behind it, as my Father did. Though he'd cut a skyline out of construction paper and run it around the crown molding, too. And put lights and garland everywhere. Got the garland part going, but not the lights or skyline. This is the most I've decorated in years. Maybe the skyline and lights will happen next year.

Tomorrow, friends will trek through the snow to trim the tree and eat comfort food. I made Irish cream last week, so that's ready. We'll feast and laugh and tell each other what we think, like all the other years. There's a real comfort in traditions and knowing what to expect. Each of us has been through the mill in 2017. Time to air grievances.

Next I need to decide on whether the fruits and nuts soaking in whiskey will end up mincemeat pie or fruitcake. Were that all of life was made of such quandaries!

For the next weeks I'm going to spend more time staring at my tree and talking to people. My energy will go toward keeping my spirits up so I can keep others' spirits up, too. We've been bottom-dwelling for too long, an easy thing to do with the state of things.

I hope, however and whatever you celebrate, that it gladdens your heart and lightens what load you carry. May a thousand good things shower on you every day, now and in the new year.